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Wanda wasn’t expecting an invite to rejoin the Avengers. But then again, she supposed that being instrumental to saving the universe after the Secret War came with its advantages. That, and the fact that the branch of the team formerly known as the ‘New’ Avengers pointed out that her crimes were actually small change compared to their collective pasts of thievery and assassination, and didn’t come with the mitigating circumstances of corruption by a very evil book.
Monica Rambeau had been willing to fudge the truth and testify that the Darkhold was to blame for Westview, too (well, it had been there), so officially, it was all behind her, and so she moved into the old Avengers Tower that was now the new Avengers Tower.
Mostly, things were fine. The Young Avengers stopped by once or twice a week.. Fury and Carol had vouched for them, leading the older Avengers to agree to the team’s existence so long as they submitted to regular training and called if a situation was clearly beyond them.
Wanda knew her sons were among them, in the form of William Kaplan and Thomas Shepherd, the boys who called themselves Wiccan and Speed.
They knew who she was to them, and they were.. Civil. But things were complicated, particularly in Billy’s case, as William Kaplan had a Mother who loved him. Wanda was respectful of this, although it broke her heart to not simply be able to pull them into her arms and kiss the tops of their heads, or tuck them into bed like the much smaller boys they still were in so many of her dreams.
Instead, she simply kept her distance, while leaving the lines of communication open. She was there if they had questions, or needed to talk about anything at all.
–
Vision moved in too, a little while after she had. Where else could a being like him really hope to belong?
Living in the same place as the very much altered one-time love of her life should have been uncomfortable, Wanda supposed, but the tower was large enough for them to mostly avoid each other (Vision lived on a separate floor to Wanda), and everyone had agreed not to pair them in training or on missions, at least for the time being.
But some nights.. Most nights, really.. Wanda was not a good sleeper. Sleeping usually meant seeing some version of her sons, which in turn led to guilt and shame, or other nightmares about the mistakes she had made.
Vision, it seemed, was not a good sleeper either. Try as she might, Wanda could never entirely sever the connection she had always felt to him. Maybe because, for reasons she couldn’t explain even to herself, she hadn’t actually tried to sever it. She could feel him, elsewhere in the tower, sometimes pacing in his room, others trying, and failing, to find rest. When he did, his sleep was fitful.
In recent weeks, he had only become more restless.
Wanda often felt tempted to go to him, even after everything. Offer some sort of comfort, a kind ear, a reminder that he was not alone.
So tempted.
But she didn’t.
–
At least, not until one particular night. Wanda was awake, and so was Vision. For some reason, he seemed particularly distressed. Eventually, Wanda felt him leave his room, and head to the tower’s common area.
It was late enough that the Tower’s other occupants were sleeping, so if he had risen in search of company, Vision was out of luck.
Maybe.. Maybe Wanda should go check on him, just for a moment. In the guise of fetching a glass of water or some such, she would go, check he was alright, satisfy her conscience, and head back to bed, where she would then hopefully sleep.
Yes, that was exactly what she would do.
Winter was approaching by then, the nights becoming colder, so Wanda slipped a robe on over her nightdress as she headed out of her room, down a floor or two to the Common Area, and made like she was fetching a glass of water.
Vision was on the sofa, the TV on low volume. She feigned for a moment that she had not noticed him, until..
“Oh, hey Vision. Couldn’t sleep?”
“Something..” He took a slightly shaky breath, “Something like that..”
Wanda frowned. She knew what Vision sounded like when he was in pain, had gotten to know it all too well during those later days in Edinburgh, their final hours together in Wakanda. He had often tried to hide his pain from her, was quite clearly trying to hide it now, but she always knew.
All the years and troubles seemed to fade away, and Wanda found herself approaching him, her frown deepening when she saw him up close.
“Are you alright? You look a bit pale..”
“Are you making a joke, Wanda?” He quirked a non-existent eyebrow. “Pale is rather baseline for me nowadays.”
“I didn’t mean it like that..” She blushed. “Paler than usual. Peaky. Like you aren’t entirely well. So.. are you okay?”
“I am fine. Even if I weren’t, it’s nothing you need to be worried about.”
“Maybe not” Wanda sighed, “But unfortunately for me, neither of us are good sleepers, and I can’t help noticing that you’ve been extra restless.”
“Oh..” He replied, but still didn’t elaborate on whatever was causing said restlessness.
“Come on, Vizh” The old nickname slipped from Wanda’s lips without her really thinking about it, although Vision found himself slightly startled by her use of it. “I get that things are weird and complicated for you and me right now, but we were friends before anything else.. if there’s something wrong, you can tell me.”
Vision paused, took another shaky breath, wincing slightly. For a moment, Wanda thought he was just going to deflect her again, until he spoke.
“Helen Cho’s synthetic flesh, when active, reacts quite similarly to the genuine article..”
“Yeah..”
“Scar tissue aches.. especially when it is cold” Vision explained. “That makes rest hard to come by.”
“Oh.. I’m sorry.”
“You get used to it.. What about you? Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“Well,” Wanda sighed, sitting beside him on the sofa without really thinking about it, “When I sleep, I dream, and when I dream.. I’m usually with my kids. And it’s wonderful. But that means waking up to a world very much not like that kinda sucks. Avoiding sleep avoids the pain. I know that’s not exactly a healthy way to deal with things, but..”
“I understand.”
“You do?”
“I dream too, when I do manage to sleep” said Vision. “Sometimes dreams of happier places, sometimes nightmares of..” He trailed off, squirming slightly on the sofa as though he couldn’t get comfortable, the same restlessness Wanda had been feeling from him of late. “My point is, I understand it can seem easier to just stay awake.”
“Let me help you.”
“What?”
“The aches” Said Wanda. “I could heal the scars.. or at least make them not hurt quite so much.”
“You don’t have to do that..” Vision frowned.
“I want to. Give me your hand.”
“Wanda..”
“Give me your hand” She insisted. “Call it a step toward being friends again. Maybe that’s how things have always been meant to be.”
“Well.. alright” Vision placed his hand in Wanda’s.
Wanda took a slightly shaky breath of her own, gathering her chaos, and reaching out for Vision with it. She frowned. The problem here was not just scar tissue. The energy that had revived Vision, that SWORD had taken from their recovered drone, was tainted and warped from the pain she had been in at the time. A forgotten piece of her broken spell.
Once upon a time, she may have let herself be crippled with guilt over that, maybe spiralled mentally.. But that would be of no help to Vision. So instead, she simply set about replacing the broken parts of spell with unbroken ones, and adjusting his scars a little in areas where SWORD’s repair work had been a little sub-par.
“Better?”
“Hmm..” Vision shifted slightly, eyes widening a little, then smiled, a brighter smile than anyone had seen from him in quite some time. “Yes, that is quite a lot better, thank you.”
“You’re welcome” Wanda’s breath caught at his smile. She remembered that smile. Loved that smile.. But those thoughts would lead nowhere good. “I.. um.. I suppose I should get back to..” She paused, catching a glimpse of the TV screen. “Malcolm in the Middle..”
“Yes” Vision nodded, a slight blush colouring his pale cheeks. “I still.. I believe it is what the younger ones would call my ‘comfort show’.”
“Would you mind if I sit and watch with you for a bit?” The words spilled from Wanda’s lips without thinking. “Just until I feel tired enough that I have no choice but to go back to bed.”
“I don’t mind. Stay as long as you need.”
So Wanda stayed, and they watched, and giggled at the appropriate moments. It was happy, familiar, comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that the exhaustion of their mutual recent lack of sleep took over them, and both eventually drifted off, Wanda’s head dropping onto Vision’s shoulder.
Neither of them noticed that she had never let go of his hand.
—
Considering his synthetic nature, Vision did not always dream in the same way as flesh and blood humans.
Sometimes he did.. sometimes he dreamed of other worlds, other Visions.
Other times, especially now as he was still sorting out his mind, his dreams were memories.
Whether dream or memory, on those rare occasions where he did manage to find sleep, Vision’s mind's eye often saw himself waking Wanda Maximoff with a kiss.
He saw this so often that when he woke to see Wanda’s peaceful face in front of him, Vision couldn’t differentiate his dreams and memories from the reality of having simply fallen asleep beside her on the common area sofa.
So he kissed her. A soft, sweet, lazy kiss, that drew Wanda to wakefulness so gently, and was so wonderfully familiar, so right, that she instinctively kissed him back.
It wasn’t until Wanda developed a need for air that they realised neither one of them was dreaming.
“S-Sorry.. I’m sorry..” Vision scrambled backwards from her. “I shouldn’t have.. I’m sorry.. Forget.. We can just forget that..”
Wanda could feel his heart shattering, and hers going with it.. But why? Every single reason why this was supposedly a bad idea had flown right out of her mind.. And none of them had been great reasons to begin with.
“Maybe I don’t want to forget” She kissed him again before he could object. “The problems with us.. Were never ‘us’. I haven’t slept well in ages, but one night with you.. Maybe it’s worth another go.”
“Well.. um..” Vision blushed and stammered. “If you want.. Breakfast? I still don’t eat, but I could buy some for you.. If..”
“I’d like that” Wanda smiled. “Just let me go get dressed, okay?”
“Okay” Vision sat up, and a slightly familiar garment fell from him. “It seems someone covered us with a blanket.
“That’s not a blanket” Wanda’s smile widened. “It’s Wiccan’s cloak..”
Perhaps there was hope for her with her sons, as well as a new start with Vision.
Things were finally looking up.